The family of Eusebio De La Rosa are furious at Bronx DA Robert Johnson for not trying to prosecute his murder. (Robert Kalfus)

The family of Eusebio De La Rosa are furious at Bronx DA Robert Johnson for not trying to prosecute his murder.

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It was 5:30 in the morning on the Fourth of July 2011, yet Eusebio De La Rosa was heading to work. That was his life — his restaurant job and his large Dominican family. He spent 25 years as a cook at the Spanish eatery Molino Rojo in the Concourse Village section of The Bronx and prided himself on always showing up. Holiday or no, he clocked in.

But just steps from his apartment building on Jesup Avenue, the 54-year-old faced two young thugs, career criminals with an angle: They’d approach a victim and punch him in the face, beat him into submission and steal his money.

The ringleader stepped forward and, without saying a word, smashed De La Rosa with a hard right, dropping him to the pavement, then kicked and punched him repeatedly. The two thieves found some cash in his pockets, perhaps as much as $200.

Two days later, De La Rosa died without regaining consciousness.

There’s little doubt about what happened that warm summer morning, according to his family. Police located two witnesses who saw the brutal assault and were willing to testify against suspect Angel Cruz, who was arrested and charged with robbery, they say. Three more witnesses had valuable information.

But Cruz was ultimately released and now, a year and a half later, no one has been charged with the slaying.

De La Rosa’s family believes the case is unlikely to be solved, and they blame the office of Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, who has the worst record of any city DA when it comes to convicting violent felons.

“The person who did this, they know who he is,” said De La Rosa’s widow, Maria. “Why isn’t he under arrest?”

Mike Palladino, who heads the NYPD’s detective union, said the two eyewitness both have criminal records and because of that fact, the case, handled by prosecutor Jason Petri, has stalled.

“I experienced the same frustration when I was assigned to the 52nd Precinct detective squad,” in The Bronx, Palladino said. “The assistant DA needs to be realistic. Ivy Leaguers with pristine records just do not frequently hang out in high-crime areas.”

The De La Rosa case illustrates a larger problem, law-enforcement sources say: The soft-on-crime Johnson refuses to take chances. Unless there’s slam-dunk evidence, he prefers not to proceed.

Johnson’s felony conviction rate of 42.8% is well below the combined 52.7% for the city’s four other DAs, according to records from the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Even worse, Johnson leaves nearly a quarter of the victims in his borough without a trial or even indictment. His office declined to prosecute 22.3% of its cases. Other DAs turned away only a combined 7.5%.

The mayor has taken notice.

In September, Bloomberg ripped Johnson for refusing to go after suspects busted for trespassing in housing projects.

“If you want to bring crime back to New York, this is probably a good way to do it,” Hizzoner snapped.

Petri himself took heat in April.

A state judge slammed him for what he called an “act of deceit” in another case — Petri’s failure to reveal in 2011 that a witness changed his testimony in a 2007 homicide, leading to murder charges being thrown out.

Petri, 35, was then demoted from the trials bureau to investigations, though this mild-mannered, straight-laced “golden boy” was only following orders, according to a DA insider.

“On serious cases, the buck really stops with Johnson,” said the source. “Nothing happens in a vacuum.”

Petri declined to comment and Steven Reed, Johnson’s spokesman, hinted that the De La Rosa case was weak.

He pointed to “inconsistencies in the evidence and recantations by certain witnesses,” and said Petri explained this to the family.

But the lack of action has left them frustrated and angry, more so after the DA’s office sealed the case, making it impossible to find out what information prosecutors have.

The victim’s daughter-in-law, Maria Paulino, said she never doubted that Cruz — a 24-year-old with a lengthy rap sheet who lives near the crime scene — was the killer.

“The police were looking for him from the beginning,” she said. “They had witnesses who identified him as the suspect.”